


Three Against One

by fairyScorpicus



Category: Mission: Impossible, Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Bombs, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hanging, Hospitals, Hurt, Medical Inaccuracies, Mission Impossible: Fallout spoilers, My First Work in This Fandom, Spoilers, Strangulation, hurt!Benji
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 19:04:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21081587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairyScorpicus/pseuds/fairyScorpicus
Summary: The end of Mission Impossible: Fallout except Walker doesn't go on the damn helicopterall I wanted was Ethan to save Benji, or at least get a reaction out of him in the movie. Also, yikes, the movie had as many medical inconsistencies as a bad fanfiction. I've never looked up hanging in my life and I know more about it than the movie, I guess.





	Three Against One

Ethan Hunt races against the clock, feet pounding on the ground as he gains on Walker. Walker, who is kind of a slow runner for being an ex CIA agent. He doesn't even make it to the helicopter before Ethan catches him with a spectacular dive, sending the Walker face-first into the ground.

The pair tussle, each desperate for the control. But Ethan more-so. Walker sends a fist in Ethan's face, and breaks his nose, but Ethan ignores the pain in favor of putting Walker into a choke hold.

The fight barely lasts three minutes. Ethan stands up and snatches up the controller. He scrambles back to Luther to find Julia with him, and the pair are hunched over the bomb.

"What is she doing here?" He splutters, grabbing their attention. She frowns at him.

"I'm helping." She says, and there's no room for argument with that tone.

"Benji, have you found the other bomb?" Luther demands, and Ethan and Julia exchange a glance.

"There's another bomb?" Julia demands incredulously as Ethan snaps, "They haven't found it yet?"

"Working on it!" Benji huffs in his earpiece. Ethan darts into the medical tent, where Ilsa and Benji stand in a room full of radioactive cases.

"It could be in here," Benji says, sounding a little hopeless, and Ilsa growls.

"It's probably in the village." She argues, and Ethan quickly steps between the pair.

"Isla, check the village. Benji, I'll help." The pair send him a grateful look as Ethan and Benji begin cracking open the cases. The first two prove to be failures and they turn on a third case when Ilsa speaks again.

"I see Lane." Ethan and Benji pause.

"What?" Benji sqawks, standing up.

"I bet the bombs near him. He's in a house near the edge of the village." Ethan straightens his back, but Benji holds a hand up.

"How do we know it's not in this room?" He asks, worried. "How do we know Lane's not here to taunt us? To distract us?"

Ethan growls. Benji raises a fair point, and he trusts Benji. After a moment, he opens his mouth, but Benji beats him to it.

"Ethan's better at opening these than I am. I'll join you, Ilsa. Just wait for me!" Without a second glance, he leaves Ethan behind. Ethan huffs in frustration. Benji's plan was identical to his, except it would be Benji here and Ethan chasing Ilsa and Lane. But Benji already left, and they don't have the time to fight over this. He returns the cracking open cases when he hears Ilsa speak again

"I see the bomb!" Ethan stands up.

"You do? Where are you?" Demands Benji as Ethan darts out of the medical tent."

"I told you, the house on the edge of the villag-" she breaks off, gasping and choking.

"Ilsa!" Benji barks, and Ethan scrambles towards the village. It's too far away, too far, but Ethan trusts Benji to help Ilsa until he gets there. He's sprinting for the village when he hears something that makes his blood go cold.

"Ilsa!" Benji shouts.

"BEM-MJI!" Ilsa screams, muffled. "Bem-mji stmmp!"

"Ilsa!" Benji shouts, but quieter and with some relief. But Ethan is terrified, because while Benji couldn't figure out what Ilsa said, he could.

"Benji stop! No! No!" Ilsa screams, and Ethan can taste her desperation as he approaches the edge of the village.

"Wha-" Benji starts, before making a truly horrible choking sound, one that turns Ethan's blood into ice. He hears Solomon Lane in his ear piece.

"You might not want to watch this."

Ethan sprints through the first house he sees as crashing sounds occur over the earpiece. He knows the minute he entered the house that it's the wrong place. He scrambled out and heads to the next one as Ilsa shrieks in his ear.

He kicks down the door just in time to see something that will stay in his nightmares forever.

Benji with a noose around his neck, lunging for Solomon Lane, who's just out of his reach as Lane grimly smiles and _yanks_ on Benji's rope-

And Benji's feet leave the ground. His hands fly to his neck, frantic for air, and Ethan is moving before he can think, tackling Lane. They tumble to the ground, trapping the precious rope length beneath them as Ilsa throws herself to ground in a mad attempt to free herself. Ethan throws Lane off the rope with as much force as he can muster, and the rope goes sliding. Lane lunges for it as Ethan lunges for him, and the rope goes taut again just as Benji's about to touch the ground. Ilsa darts in, rope still tied to her wrists, and kicks a wooden box in Benji's direction, who scrambles onto it desperately. Lane snarls, and in one move sends Ethan crashing into a shelf as he yanks the rope harder and starts tying it up for good measure. Ethan's scrambling to his feet, terrified for his friend, but Ilsa is there first, knocking away Lane. But the rope is still caught, and Benji has to stand on the tips of his toes to take wheezing gasps of air.

Assured with the knowledge that Benji isn't dying just yet, Ethan turns to Lane, who's slamming Ilsa against the bookshelf. She snatches part of a broken bottle off the ground and stabs Lane with it before tossing the sharp glass into Benji's hands. Ethan sends a brutal kick to the back of Lane's knee, and he goes down. Ilsa tries to wrap the rope on her wrists around his neck, but Lane flings himself backwards, into Ethan, who doesn't have a rope, but he has his hands and a deep anger at Lane for hurting his friends. He decks Lane in the face as the man turns to face him.

Lane snarls, and there's a strange gleam in his eye. He lunges at Ethan as Ilsa steps forward, knocking himself and Ethan out of Ilsa's reach-

-and sends them crashing against Benji's box, knocking it out from underneath the poor man's feet.

Ilsa grabs Lane and hauls him backwards, succeeding in putting Lane in a chokehold this time. Ethan ignores them as he twists around on the floor for Benji's box, the only thing keeping him alive, while Benji continues frantically sawing at the rope with the broken glass. But he's at an awkward angle and it's taking too long. Ethan gives up on the box and snatches the broken glass from Benji, freeing him in one solid move.

Benji lands on his stomach on the ground, coughing and hacking, desperate for air. Ethan is quick to get the noose off, but Benji continues to struggle for air. Ethan pauses, worried. Why can't he breath? Why can't he-

Then he catches sight of Benji's neck; red, painful to look at, practically swollen and Ethan afraid to touch it- wait, hold on, swollen-

His throat must be swollen, Ethan realizes, and panics. They don't have the time to help Benji just yet.

Ilsa snatches his attention. "I've got the bomb, you've got the control?"

"On the count of three," Luther states in the earpiece, and Ethan pulls the controller out of his pocket, casting a frightened look at Benji. He lays there, unmoving, save for his chest moving up and down and the whistle in his throat.

"One, two, three!" Luther counts, and Ethan yanks the failsafe out of the controller as Ilsa clips the wires on the bomb.

There's a moment of silence, filled with only hard breathing, before Ethan sighs with relief.

"We did it." Ethan breathes.

"Who's wheezing?" Julia asks, bringing Ethan back to the other situation.

"We need to get Benji to the medical tents." Ethan commands. "He was hanged and he's having trouble breathing. We need to move him now."

"Don't move him!" Julia commands back. "People usually broke their necks before they died of aphyxiation when they were hanged." Ethan freezes in the middle of hunching over Benji.

"What?" He barks, frightened. And then Benji speaks.

"It's alright, back doesn't hurt," Benji rasps, and Ethan cringes because his voice sounds so painful. It's quiet, barely there, and his breathing is a whistle.

"Alright," Julia conceeds. "Only because we need to intubate him now before the swelling gets too bad."

That's all the permission Ethan needs. He scoops Benji up carefully and races as fast as he can to the medical tents. Julia must have gotten there first because he only got about a quarter of the way there before a Jeep picked them up for the rest of the way.

He watches as they usher Benji away, and the other doctors swarm him, checking him for injuries.

Two days later, after they finished patching Ethan up, they let him see Benji. He slept, with a tube down his throat that hurt to look at. His neck was covered with bandages and a cast.

"His necks not broken, by it's better not go risk hurting it more," the nurse checking on Benji explains when she catches Ethan's dismayed look. Which just made Ethan feel guilty.

"Why's he asleep?" Ethan manages to ask.

"We had to sedate him to intubate him, and it's best to keep him under while he has the tube in," the nurse explains. Ethan shrinks into his plastic chair, thick, poisonous guilt churning in his gut.

It took another five days before they took the tube out, and another three before Benji woke up.

"I'm sorry," Ethan breathes, hands gripping Benji's.

Benji looked at him, eyes dulled from painkillers.

"I'm alive," he rasps, his voice still horrible and scratchy and faint. "And its thanks to you. Lane hanged me, not you." Ethan didn't know what to say.

"I should've gone to Ilsa." He tried again, but Benji shakes his head.

"My plan, my idea," Benji coughs for a moment, sending Ethan into a brief panic before the coughing dies down. "Not your fault."

Ethan sighs and buries his face in Benji's hospital gown, and they sit there in the silence of the hospital.

Benji's heart thuds in Ethan's ear, steady and reassuring. And _alive_.


End file.
